The Best Ways to Combine Your Favorite Retail Buys with Your Best Handmade Items

If you’re a keen crafter, you’ll know this dilemma well: you’ve made so many gorgeous items, but you just don’t have the space to store them. Or, your existing interior design just doesn’t suit itself to matching up with the homemade touch. There’s a few ways around this. First, there’s the unthinkable: make fewer crafts. Of course, you won’t be doing that in a hurry! The second is to give away more – but when you’re proud of something you’ve made, it’s hard to part ways with it. Plus, it’s always nice to reserve your handmade pieces for special occasions. So, that leaves us with one final option: make your interior design suit what you’re making. It might seem like a big job, but it’ll only take a few tweaks before you’re there.

Buy items that you’d love to make

One of the surest ways to combine handmade crafts with your retail-bought design, is by buying things you’d love to make. There are always going to be projects that are too skilled or too advanced for your abilities. You might love the look of unique kitchen pendant lighting, but unless you’re an electrician, making your own would be hard – and possibly dangerous. So, instead of pining over them and adding how-to guides to your Pinterest board, why not buy it instead? If you source the item from artisans or reputable retailers, you’ll be able to keep the bespoke ethos going too.

Tone down any sharp contrasts or edgy decorating

While crafted pieces can bring a bit of warmth and personality to a room, sometimes they just don’t work. If you’ve got a sleek, contemporary design running through your property, your crocheted blankets, knitted throws and felted cushions might not fit in that well. So, keep these sorts of designs to a minimum, or ensure they only appear in select rooms like the bedrooms.

Embrace shabby chic

It might be time to update your entire home’s interior design, especially if you weren’t crafting when you initially renovated your home. One style that will always work compatibly with crafting, and that always remains popular, is shabby chic. It’s easy to do, and often very cheap to implement. You can pull carpets up and marvel at the gorgeous wooden floorboards beneath. You can spend a small amount of money on furniture sets, and then enjoy yourself upcycling them. Plus, you don’t need to worry about your handmade items sticking out: they’ll fit in perfectly with a shabby chic-styled room.

Consider that minimalism probably isn’t for you

Minimalism has been leading interior design trend lists for years and years now. However, people are beginning to get bored of it, and are looking for homier, cozy-looking designs. So, don’t pander to the empty looking rooms you see in design magazines and on TV: embrace your lived-in home, and how it reflects your personality and your efforts. If you’re abandoning minimalism because you want to fill your house with clutter, that’s a different thing all together. However, people will be impressed by what you’ve made, and enjoy seeing how you’re putting your stamp onto your home.

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For 3 years Catherine has been sharing tips, tutorials and guides on things to make with her fair hands right here on yourstrulyhandmade.com. Please look through the archives or learn more by reading her story here.